Wednesday 9 June 2021

Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 6: Sympathy for the Devil


Hmm...I'm not too sure about this one.

Spike and Jet shadow a bounty known only as "Giraffe" at a blues club where a child prodigy named Wen is on stage playing the harmonica. As Jet distracts rival bounty hunter "Fatty" River, Spike continues to shadow Giraffe as he shadows Wen and his wheelchair-bound guardian to a hotel. Unfortunately, Giraffe his mortally wounded and thrown out of a window. Before he expires, he gives Spike a gemstone and an obscure warning. Jet subsequently learns from Fatty that Wen's guardian, "Zebra" was part of the same militia that Giraffe was a part of, and apparently betrayed him during a raid on an R&D facility. As Spike goes after Zebra in a bid to save Wen, he soon discovers the meaning behind Giraffe's warning.

Okay, I think this one has a pretty interesting twist. It turns out that Wen is a lot older than he appears to be due to a disaster involving the hyperspace gate some fifty years earlier. While his parents were killed by the disaster shielding him, Wen survived but is now eternally a child due to...weird space magic. Often subject to experimentation, he was in the R&D facility that was raided, and took the opportunity to escape by drugging up and kidnapping Zebra to pose as his "parent". Like the episode title suggests, the reveal of Wen's background is meant to present him in a more sympathetic light. For the most part, he seems to just make a living by performing at blues clubs, but he also has to get by through kidnapping and murder since he's either seen as a child or experimented on.

Spike and Jet later realise that the gem in their possession is apparently the key to solving Wen's condition. Again, I don't really understand the "science", but I don't think Spike does either.

The notion of Spike having to kill a person who is seen as a child by all probably doesn't sit well, which meant this episode had to be censored in it's Western release. The original American airing actually had to be delayed due to some imagery many viewers would have associated with 9/11.

All in all, this one was a mixed bag.

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